


A Buried and Burning Flame

by Lissomedi



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Angst, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Sad Crowley (Good Omens), gotta be some baggage there, they didn't wait 6000 years for nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-24 02:38:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19714600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lissomedi/pseuds/Lissomedi
Summary: Crowley felt like someone had reached down into him and dredged up something so precious and hidden, he himself hadn’t known it was there. And now this ancient, delicate thing sat blinking into the light as crowds of strangers gathered to gape and bear witness.And whatever awful vulnerability he felt at having his heart pulled from him and put on display like this—Aziraphale wasn’t experiencing any of it.(Crowley and Aziraphale visit a museum exhibit, and one painting cuts a little too close. Post Not-Pocalypse.)





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, all! Back again. My brain keeps playing 101 Ways To Get Aziraphale and Crowley Together, Despite Their Best Efforts to Do the Opposite. Last time it was Aziraphale being the dumb-dumb; this time it's Crowley. Hope you enjoy!

__

* * *

_At last I can grant a name_  
_to a buried and a burning flame_  
_as love and its decisive pain._

—Hozier, _Sunlight_

* * *

“My dear, I’m very surprised,” Aziraphale said, panting slightly as he hurried to keep up with Crowley’s long stride. “You’ve never shown an interest in art before. And I mean _never_.” 

“Yes, well.” Crowley was noncommittal. They cut through the crowded London sidewalk, walked two streets over, and there it was—a graceful, pillared building with the words MUSEUM OF LONDON stamped into the stone. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale sighed, as if he were seeing an old friend for the first time in quite awhile. “I always feel so nostalgic, you know; it’s like looking through a photo album. Especially all the Neoclassicism.Goodness, what a lovely time. _”_

“Yeah,” Crowley said, voice wry. “Too bad about all that French Revolution stuff.”

Aziraphale gave him a sharp look. “Really. You can’t blame _art_ for that.” 

“After you,” Crowley said, gesturing with his hand. A smile pulled insistently at the demon’s mouth, but he held it back by pressing his lips into a flat line. 

Aziraphale eyed him suspiciously. “What kind of trouble are you up to?” 

Crowley raised his arms as if to say, _Trouble? Me?_

Aziraphale huffed a sigh but looked amused at the mystery. As much as he tried to hide himself in cozy, familiar things, Crowley knew Aziraphale liked _some_ excitement from time to time. 

They walked in, Aziraphale graciously paying for the both of them. (Crowley would have just miracled past the guards, but Aziraphale was absolutely scandalized by the suggestion. “Art needs funding to survive, Crowley.”)

And—there it was. A huge, glossy banner hung from the ceiling, splashed inky black and bright white, drawings of silky feathers lining the edges. And in the center of the banner, with blocky, artful letters, were the words “Angels and Demons: Through the Ages.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said with a sigh. “I should have realized. This is just your version of _Omphaloskepsis_."

“I take offense to that,” Crowley countered, though he didn’t. “Besides, my naval’s not all that fascinating. Come on, angel.”

Crowley meant to lightly grasp Aziraphale’s arm. Perfectly innocent, perfectly simple—just providing a bit of prompting and direction. He aimed too low, though, and his reaching hand found Aziraphale’s fingers, and—for just one moment, quite by accident, they were holding hands.

Crowley jerked away and tucked his hand into his pocket. 

“Let’s go,” he said, and was pleased when his voice came out calm and collected. 

“Yes, alright,” Aziraphale said softly. Crowley looked at him, and he saw Aziraphale’s cheeks were faintly pink—but that could have just been the heat outside and their long walk through the city. 

They headed into the exhibit, and Crowley looked around in delight. He had to hand it to the humans. Heaven and Hell were a rather mundane affair, all things considered, but the depth of human imagination was limitless. They painted things most demons and angels could scarcely _dream_. 

Crowley particularly enjoyed his part in all of it. Tempting the fall of Adam and Eve, that left an indelible mark on history. He’d seen himself painted in almost every way, from a tiny rat snake to a behemoth sea monster. On several occasions, he’d been confused for Satan himself, complete with forked tail, devil horns, and goat’s feet. In this exhibit alone, he could be seen tempting saints, popes, kings, women lazing around stone wells, and even—in an impressive act of religious syncretism—the greek god Dionysus.

“ _This_ ,” he said, lips pulled into a wide grin, “is my favorite thing.”

“I rather thought that was me,” Aziraphale said absently, his back turned to Crowley. 

Crowley stopped breathing, eyes going wide behind his dark glasses. 

Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice. 

“Come,” the angel said, sounding absorbed and eager. “Let’s see what all the fuss is about.”

Crowley was only a step or two behind. 

* * *

“Huh,” Azirapale said. 

“Huh,” Crowley agreed.

“There’s so little variety with angels,” Aziraphale sighed. “We’re either children with little chubby faces and dove wings, or we look like American cinematographic stars. No in-between.”

“At least you’re not depicted as a giant blob of darkness with fangs and body parts in funny places,” Crowley countered. “As if a mass of swirling black goo is capable of tempting anyone.”

The painting they studied was a mountain of cherubs, all smiling happily and playing harps, their tiny wings a blur of motion. The one at the bottom of the pile was eating grapes and drinking from a goblet, his eyes closed as though he were enjoying both immensely. A shower of blond curls wreathed his face.

“Hey, that could be—”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Aziraphale interrupted, head held high. 

Crowley wanted to dare. Teasing Aziraphale had this strange, magnetic pull, as though Crowley were addicted to the angel’s reddened cheeks and peevish glare. 

“There are worse things to be,” Crowley said. “I should know—I always am.”

“Yes, well, let’s find one where I can make fun of _you_ ,” Aziraphale said sullenly. 

But the next painting was not that at all. 

In the center of a roiling, charred landscape, a lone angel sat hunched over his knees, his wings hovering unevenly around him. The wings were pearly white at the top, but as you worked toward the edges, they looked like they had been dipped in hot tar. Inky blackness pulsed up through the feathers, infecting the purity of the porcelain wings like a disease. The angel had his head thrown back, his eyes turned upward, agony etched into the lines of his face.

The painting was titled _The Fall_. 

“Oh, goodness,” Aziraphale said quietly. 

Crowley could think of nothing to say. He kept staring at the image, stuck like a fly to an adhesive strip. 

_I didn’t mean to Fall._

_I only ever asked questions._

“Are you quite alright, dear?”

“Fine,” Crowley said, automatically. Of course he was fine. Wasn’t he always?

“Come,” Aziraphale said, infinitely gentle. He took Crowley’s arm, and the contact was enough to break the painting’s hold. “Let’s move on. You know, I don’t like that one _at all._ Highly inaccurate.”

The next painting was a rather graphic exploration of Crowley’s relationship with Eve. Crowley was in human form this time, albeit a highly sculpted version. 

“Er,” Aziraphale said awkwardly. “I mean—well, the craftsmanship is there, to be sure. Look how the leaves are arranged _just so_.” 

“I’m not sure what I’m meant to be doing,” Crowley mused. At Aziraphale’s look, he said, “No, I know what I’m _doing_ , obviously. But how does this help me tempt her? To eat the apple, I mean.”

“I believe,” Aziraphale said delicately. “That the artist is using the snake and the forbidden fruit as, well—as a sort of metaphor.”

Crowley considered that for a moment. “Yeah, well. She looked nothing like that, anyway. Why do they always get her wrong?” 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said seriously, turning toward him. The angel worried the exhibit’s information pamphlet between his fingers. “Did you and Eve—I mean to say, was that part of the—”

Crowley laughed.

It was the wrong thing to do. 

Aziraphale’s expression went flat, and he looked away. 

“No, of course not,” Crowley answered quickly, seeing his misstep even if he didn’t fully understand it. “I just thought—well, I rather thought she’d make use of the knowledge. She always seemed so _interested_ in things. And between the two of them, she seemed the better choice.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. The hard line of his mouth relaxed. 

“As long as we’re on the subject,” Crowley said, dragging up a long-held curiosity. “I heard a rumor about you and Oscar Wilde ‘round the 19th century.”

Aziraphale’s entire face went as red as a tomato. “Oh, well—I—that is to say.” 

And he tottered away to the opposite side of the exhibit. 

Crowley didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He did neither, and simply followed Aziraphale instead. 

* * *

The painting at the other end of the room seemed to be the crown jewel of the exhibit, and there was a line trailing around the corner. From his place, Crowley could tell the painting was very large, but he couldn’t see it over the crowd of people. Aziraphale had settled into the cue, and Crowley came up behind him. 

“We could just freeze time,” Crowley suggested. Aziraphale jumped and turned around.

“No,” the angel chided firmly. “Polite society dictates that we wait our turn.”

Crowley resisted the urge to grin. “I never claimed to be polite.”

“Yes, well, I _am_ trying to train some manners into you, aren’t I?”

The idea of Aziraphale training Crowley to do anything sent off a shower of sparks in the demon’s brain. He blew them out one by one and tucked them carefully away. 

They waited in mostly comfortable silence. Despite their awkward conversation before, it was difficult to feel truly uncomfortable with someone you’d known for so long. They’d already seen too much. 

The line shifted slowly until, finally, it was their turn. They rounded the corner—and both of them froze at exactly the same time. Aziraphale let out a huffy little exclamation, something halfway between a gasp and a scream. 

The painting took up the entire wall. It was a beautiful, intricately rendered garden with lush green plants and rolling blue skies. A stone wall wound its way around the whole of the paradise, and a golden gate stood just visible in the distance. Near the center was a lone, perfect apple tree, its branches heavy with glistening fruit. 

It was Eden.

It was a startlingly _accurate_ version of Eden.

But that is not what shocked Aziraphale and Crowley into stillness. 

No, it was the two figures at the very center of the painting, who, by a clever trick with perspective, seemed to hover weightlessly above God’s glorious garden. 

One was clearly an angel. His head was topped with a riot of white-blonde curls, and a halo circled his face and lit it with a divine glow. His wings spread across almost the entirety of the painting, unfurled and held aloft in all their holy glory. The feathers were so painstakingly created, they seemed to move and shift with the imaginary beats of the angel’s wings. His white robe was simple by comparison, but looked as if you could touch it and feel silk under your fingertips. 

The angel was holding a snake. Or, perhaps more accurately, the snake was holding the angel—or some impossible combination of the two. The snake’s body coiled around the length of the angel, its shiny black scales stark against the angel’s robe. For his part, the angel seemed to be clutching the snake _to_ him, rather than pushing it away. And the snake’s mouth…

Well, the snake’s mouth was latched onto the delicate curve of the angel’s neck, and the angel’s head was thrown back, eyes pressed closed, mouth opened in a silent scream.

It didn’t look like a scream of _pain._

Crowley felt like fire had erupted under his skin. Worse, he felt like someone had reached down into him and dredged up something so precious and hidden, he himself hadn’t known it was there. And now this ancient, delicate thing sat blinking into the light as crowds of strangers gathered to gape and bear witness. 

He couldn’t look at it another second. His eyes moved to the plaque on the wall. 

_Temptation at the Eastern Gate._

And he felt that old familiar itch. The one that told him to rush 100 miles per hour in the opposite direction. The one that said to rip out the rearview mirror and never even think about looking back, because something terrible would happen if he did, like with Lot and those poor pillars of salt. 

Aziraphale’s hand found Crowley’s arm and held it tightly. Restrained him. As if he _knew._

“ _Oh_ ,” Aziraphale said, more calmly this time. His voice was _full_ , but of what, Crowley didn’t know. 

Crowley’s old defenses kicked back into gear. _Say something—anything—to show it doesn’t affect you. To show it doesn’t matter._

“Well,” Crowley said, his voice hoarse, but by Satan’s name, he was trying. “They were bound to get one thing right eventually.”

And then he realized what he had said, and his feet itched to flee all over again. But Aziraphale gripped his arm more tightly. 

“I mean—” Crowley cleared his throat. “That we were there. Together. In the Garden. I mean to say, we look like ourselves and it looks like the Garden.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale murmured. And then he stepped closer to the painting. Crowley looked around and realized time _had_ stopped; Aziraphale must have done it while Crowley wasn’t paying attention. 

“Lovely,” Aziraphale said, in a distant sort of way. 

And Crowley realized something terrible: whatever this was doing to him, whatever awful vulnerability he felt at having his heart pulled from him and put on display like this—Aziraphale wasn’t experiencing any of it. This nightmare was Crowley’s and Crowley’s alone.

Unwillingly, his eyes turned back to the painting. It hurt to look at, the same way it hurt to gaze into an exploding nebula. It was the kind of hurt you’d go blind for. The kind you’d maybe die for. 

Aziraphale finally finished his inspection and turned back to him. “Well,” he said. “It’s not Neoclassicism, but it’s delightful. Thank you for bringing me, Crowley.”

And as Aziraphale restarted time, Crowley felt a slithering numbness overtake him. The wellspring of emotion retreated under his rough handling, sliding back beneath the rocks for cover. 

They left the exhibit, and if Crowley was quieter than before, Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice. 

But Crowley came back the next day and bought a small copy of the art print, his hands shaking as he fumbled to hide the bag. Hiding it from _who_ , Crowley didn’t know.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the wonderful comments! My week was a lot busier than I expected, so I haven't had a chance to reply yet—but I appreciate the encouragement greatly! And now on to Chapter 2!

* * *

  
_The tale's the same,_  
_told before and told again,_  
_a soul that's born in cold and rain  
_ _knows sunlight._

* * *

  
“My dear, you really _should_ get some personal touches in here,” Aziraphale tsked one night many weeks after the museum trip. He stared around at the bare concrete walls of Crawley’s apartment.

“I have the Da Vinci,” Crowley protested. “And the—well.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, judgment in his eyes. “The statue you _stole.”_

“They weren’t using it anymore.”

“Even so,” Aziraphale said primly. Then his gaze softened. “You have a _life_ now, you know. You can fill it with things you care about.”

 _I already have,_ Crowley thought but didn’t say. He was doing a lot of that these days—not saying things. 

Instead he made a noise in the back of his throat. “Don’t go all soft on me. I’ve got plenty.” 

Aziraphale’s concerned look didn’t waver. 

Crowley rolled his eyes and tossed his legs down, levering himself out of the throne-like chair. “Right now all I care about is alcohol. Want some?”

“Very good, thank you,” Aziraphale said, and this time he did break into a smile. 

Crowley went to the kitchen and fished a _Chambertin Grand Cru_ out of the small wine rack that never dared go empty. He pulled two elegant wine glasses from the cabinet and hooked his fingers around the stems. Then he brought the haul back into the living room.

Aziraphale was up and puttering around, looking through one of his black marble dressers. The drawers were mostly empty, except for a few odd knickknacks here or there, mostly stuff Crowley needed to keep up appearances. Aziraphale hummed disapprovingly—until he got to the last drawer. Inside was a brightly colored plastic bag with “Museum of London” written across it. 

“My dear boy, what did you buy from the museum?” Aziraphale exclaimed, sounding surprised and delighted.

Crowley went from relaxed—happy, even—to bone-chillingly horrified in the span of a second. The wine glasses fell to the ground and shattered. 

_“Stop_!” he shouted, lunging across the room. 

But Aziraphale’s hands were opening the bag and pulling out the print, and Crowley snatched it from him with shaking fingers—but it was too late. Aziraphale had gone still, and Crowley knew he had seen. 

Crowley tucked the print of _Temptation at the Eastern Gate_ back into its bag and replaced it carefully into the drawer. 

“I didn’t realize you’d liked it so much,” Aziraphale said quietly. His eyes were on Crowley’s face, and they were much too shrewd, as though they could read every tremor. 

“I didn’t,” Crowley said. “I mean—I thought it was funny, so I bought it.”

“Funny? It seemed rather serious to me.”

“Well, it’s—it’s absurd, isn’t it?” he asked, trying to keep the wildness out of his eyes. “I mean, the painting, what it _implies_ —that’s just not it at all. That’s not how it was then.” 

“Then,” Aziraphale repeated. Crowley blessed his slip—and blessed Aziraphale, for being clever enough to catch it.

The demon didn’t answer, and they were silent for a moment. 

“Did you buy the one of Eve, too?” Aziraphale asked finally. 

It took Crowley a moment to remember what Aziraphale was even talking about. “Oh. No. I—that is to say—style was all wrong and I—”

“Perhaps,” Aziraphale said firmly. “We should stop lying to one another.”

“I’m not _lying,"_ Crowley insisted desperately. And of course he was, but not for the usual reasons people lie. Not to gain anything, or to mislead anyone in a direction they wouldn’t otherwise go. Aziraphale was poking at a bruise, and Crowley simply wanted him to _stop_. 

“It’s a laugh,” Crowley repeated, pulling his sunglasses from his pocket and folding them over his eyes. “That’s all. Don’t take it for more than that, angel.”

He meant it as a command, but it came out like a plea. He hated himself for that, but it seemed to work better than the command might have done. Aziraphale had always been an empathetic creature. 

The angel moved toward him carefully, the way one might approach a startled animal. He reached up and patted Crowley on the cheek. For his part, Crowley stood very still, holding his breath.

There was a gentle, trembling moment, where both of them were quiet. 

“All right, dear,” Aziraphale said finally, compassion in his eyes. “If that’s what you want.”

* * *

Crowley tried to make it normal again. He drove fast and teased Aziraphale and drank wine and laughed and told all his best jokes. But it was always _there,_ between them, no matter what Crowley did. He couldn’t help feeling he had ruined everything, despite his best efforts to keep it all _exactly the same._

He felt like Aziraphale was withdrawing, but he couldn’t tell if that was really happening, or if Crowley was projecting all his worst fears. 

So he pulled back, too. Stopped calling as often. Stopped showing up at the bookshop every day. Turned down invites for lunch. And suddenly, quite by accident, he had gone a week without seeing Aziraphale. And then two weeks. It was the first day into the third week when he got a knock on the door.

Crowley was wearing rumpled black silk pajamas, his riot of red hair unbrushed and messy around his face. His glasses were off, because he had no one to hide his eyes from.

He opened the door, expecting some forgotten delivery. Instead, he found a very harried angel at his doorstep. 

Aziraphale swooped in, pulling all the world’s light inside with him. The apartment winced its metaphorical eyes at the sudden brightness after weeks of Crowley’s gloom.

The angel’s coat was wrinkled, his bow tie askew, and there was a forgotten tea stain on the collar of his shirt. He wore reading glasses, and behind them, his eyes looked bright and feverish. 

“Uh,” Crowley said, his voice and vocabulary feeling rather rusty from disuse. “What are you—”

“I’ve had _quite enough,_ I tell you!” Aziraphale cried, his face flushed with unrepressed passion. “I’ve given you your time, your space, because that’s what all the books say to do—but I will not allow us to keep going on this way. I will _not_.”

“What are you on about, angel?”

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said breathlessly. “You won’t answer my calls. You won’t even _see_ me. And I think I know what’s causing all this. And I just think, if we pull it out into the open, we can move forward, _together._ Please, just tell me—”

“There’s nothing to pull out into the open,” Crowley said, the old defenses roaring to life, telling him to _deny, deny, deny._ “I just—needed a bit of time to myself. Is that wrong?”

“No,” Aziraphale said, but his mouth was set in a stubborn line. “No, it’s not wrong at all, if it’s genuinely what you need. But I don’t think that’s what this is. I’ve known you a very long time, Crowley. You’ve always been— _skittish_ —”

“I’m not skittish!” 

“Of course you are, dear; you’re a snake, for goodness’ sake.” 

Crowley opened his mouth, but Aziraphale grabbed his shoulders—and Crowley suddenly found himself quite speechless.

“I left it alone, like you asked,” the angel said, his expression heartbreakingly sincere. “But it feels like you’re still pushing me away. I’m trying to do what you want, dear, but I can’t seem to get a grip on it. Can we just talk about this? Please?”

But Crowley had never been one for talking. Oh, he _talked,_ surely. Hell knew half of tempting was talking and talking and talking. But he never said something real. Something important. Something that could give someone the power to ground him under their heel. Demons were so very _good_ at rooting out weaknesses, especially each other’s. Better to pretend you had no feelings than to let a demon catch a whiff of one. 

Particularly a feeling like this.

“Listen,” Aziraphale said, his hand moving to Crowley’s face. “I think both of us have wasted so much time being afraid. I don’t want to be afraid anymore, my darling. I love—”

With a gentle _pop,_ Crowley’s human form disappeared. In its place, curled up in a ropy pile on the floor, was a glistening black snake. It was a rather _large_ snake, with flecks of red and gold in its smooth scales. 

Crowley felt the _otherness_ course through him. The senses were different, _heightened_ , the lush carpet foreign against skin that wasn’t skin at all but hard, slippery scales. New instincts whispered to him, and his emotions retreated back behind his reptilian brain, his fear washing out as his demonic soul oriented itself into its new host.

“Oh, good lord,” Aziraphale said, sounding exasperated. He leaned down to pick Crowley up, and Crowley slithered away, darting under the black leather couch.

“For Heaven’s _sake_!” Aziraphale cried, getting down on his hands and knees to peer under the couch. “I will _not_ chase you around your own bloody flat, you ridiculous creature!”

He reached a hand toward Crowley, but Crowley retreated farther back behind the couch.

With a sigh, Aziraphale stood, his tan wingtip shoes just visible from Crowley’s hiding spot. Crowley imagined he’d feel silly about this later—it would all be terribly embarrassing once he had regained his human corporation. He hadn’t lost control of his form like that in _centuries._

But just now, that didn’t matter to him at all. 

“Fine,” Aziraphale sighed. There was a gentle shuffling sound and a slight leathery squeak as Aziraphale settled on the couch. “Fine—I’ll just say it like this. Not ideal, but when is it ever, with us?”

Aziraphale sighed and took a deep breath, and Crowley found himself holding his. 

“I love you, you fool of a serpent,” Aziraphale blurted finally, the same way humans laughed or cried—as though it were some great release from an impossible tension. “I would like very much to be with you, in all the ways that count. And if I’d known looking at a coincidentally accurate painting of us could have hurried this along, I would have inspired a human to paint one years ago.”

Crowley’s forked tongue darted out to taste the air, but he couldn’t detect any dishonesty. He shouldn’t have expected it, anyway—Aziraphale had no reason to lie, and he wasn’t cruel enough to toy with Crowley if he didn’t mean it.

So, Aziraphale had done his part, and now it was Crowley’s moment—to choose. To act. To push past all the obstacles that had been in their way, as Aziraphale seemed to have done. He was suddenly glad for the snake form; it made him braver, somehow, more elemental. More driven on instinct. 

Slowly, he slipped out from under the couch and glided, feather-light, up Aziraphale’s leg. He draped over the angel’s lap, up around his shoulders, and brought his head to rest in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck. Then he scented Aziraphale’s skin, and the angel shuddered.

“Can you change back, please?” Aziraphale’s voice was low. “I like this form very much, but I believe your human corporation is more appropriate just now.”

And suddenly Crowley wanted to _be_ in this moment, truly, without the distance of a cold-blooded reptile. In a slow, practiced movement that was as natural to him as an exhale, Crowley reorganized his form until he was human-shaped again. His body came together draped over Aziraphale, knees on either side of him, hands braced on the couch behind the angel’s head, mouth still on Aziraphale’s neck.

“Much better,” Aziraphale sighed. 

“All the waysssss that count?” Crowley repeated, his words carrying the hint of a hiss. His tongue was still snakelike and forked, and it brushed Aziraphale’s skin. Crowley delighted in the liquid shiver that went through the angel. 

“Oh, so you _were_ listening,” Aziraphale said. His mouth was close to Crowley’s ear, his breath ghosting out like a caress, and it was the most distracting thing in the world. And Crowley knew very much about the world's distractions. 

“What exsssssactly did you have in mind?”

“I want you to kiss me, for a start.”

And so Crowley did. 

It felt like taking communion, all hot and bright and _holy_. He felt _connected_ again, in a way he hadn’t since his Fall. As though the Almighty had finally pulled up the gate that had been closed on him by just an inch or two, enough to let the light flood in. It warmed all the hard, cold places inside of him, soothing the hurt, healing the wounds. 

He pulled back with a gasp, turning his face away, afraid the light inside of him had somehow manifested and would blind his demon eyes if he looked at it directly. Aziraphale’s hands were on his face, fingers stroking his skin. Belatedly, Crowley wondered if he could die from this; if he was even built for it anymore. The defining characteristic of a demon’s existence was to be undeserving of love. 

“Look at me, dear.” Aziraphale’s voice and hands were gentle but insistent. 

Crowley did, and he realized the light wasn't just inside of him. Aziraphale was radiating it, was in fact the _source_ of it, filling Crowley like an empty cup. But when Crowley looked, he wasn’t blinded. Instead, it felt like basking in sunlight. 

And for the first time, he let himself acknowledge all the love in his unholy, damned soul. Built for it or not, it was there, despite centuries of trying to root it out. 

“I love you,” he whispered, his throat straining as though he had shouted it. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, his face shining with joy. “I knew you’d get there eventually. I love you, too.”

A long time later, after they were both breathless (despite not needing to breathe) from what would become one of their favorite pastimes, Crowley thought to ask something. 

“Angel—you’re saying you _didn’t_ inspire a human to create that painting?”

Aziraphale laughed. “Wouldn’t that have been clever of me. But no. I suppose if millions of humans create millions of works over thousands of years, eventually they string together something accurate.”

“Remarkable, really,” Crowley said.

“Truly,” Aziraphale agreed. 

Then Crowley kissed him again, and all thoughts of humans—remarkable or otherwise—vanished from their minds. 

* * *

  
_All these colors fade for you only,_ _  
_ _Carry me slowly, my sunlight._


End file.
